I was born with gastoschisis , which has left me with no belly button and a massive scar , i was born prematurly (2lb) and very nearly died ! i am 17 and no different from anybody else now apart from various scars all over my body . I was just wondering if this condition would have affected my fertility ?? I was told that one of my ovaries were damaged ?? Can anybody else help me ??
At my 20 week scan my partner and I sat amazed in front of the screen watching as the sonographer pointed out all the amazing features of our baby. Little did we know what we were about to be told!
The sonographer said “i’m just popping out to check some dates”, two minutes later she retured looking very concerned. She sat back down and said “unfortunately I have found a problem and your baby has a hole in it’s stomach around the belly button. The consultant was on his way and would explain more, we were put into a side room and it was the longest 5 minutes ever.
The consultant explained the baby had a hole to the right hand side of it’s belly button. With little more information given than that, the first question i asked was “does this mean the baby will die”. To which he replied “i can not tell for sure”.
The next 4 days were a blur and spent most of the time on the internet looking at diffrent options/possibilities. As we all know the internet can be a blessing and a curse, we found good info and terrible info but as we had never heard of this before all information was welcome.
We then saw consultants, sonographers, surgeons , Counsellors and more. The more people we spoke to the more we understood things were going to be ok (not easy but ok).
The last months of the pregnancy dragged on and I went into labour naturally at 36 weeks, after 24 hours of labour I was rushed into theatre for a c-section. She (Frankie-Lee) came out moments later very peaceful. We could not hold her, just listen to her as the neonatal nurses cleaned her up ready to go to intensive care.
My partner managed to take some great footage of her on camera and I cherish it to this day. These were the fisrt moments of my baby’s life and were were metres away from each other!
We were allowed to hold her before she went down for surgery which was only 1 hour after she was born.
3 hours later a surgeon came to see us to say she was doing brilliant, she had a primary repair (no silo) and did not even need a ventilator!
In all we spent 5 weeks in hospital and she (Frankie-Lee) was wondeful. Each day had it’s own challenges and the smallest fall would feel like the end of the world. I soon realised not to think too far in advance and take each day as it comes.
Frankie -Lee is now a normal 2 year old with all the regular functions. Looking back at our photo’s I sometimes have to ask myself ‘is that poorly little girl really the same one’!
Frankie-Lee is the best thing that has ever happened to us!
But I was born In Iowa in 1972 and I was born with this defect. I was only a 3 pound baby and that was along with all the IV’s and all the surgical garb. I had quite a few surgery’s when I was a baby and I also have my battlescar on my belly!
I had no problems until just lately I started having servere stomach pains and I noticed that my belly felt like I had a ton of gas and the dr had me go get a ct scan and found out I had a incarsarated hernia and an upper intestine blockage! Stemming from my birth defect! I had this done last year!
Yikes now it can get scary with this kind of birth defect since Dr’s don’t know what they are going to get into until they cut me open! And with all the scar tissue and not knowing if all the body parts are in the right area, very nerve wrecking!
Luckly my Dr’s at the Universary of Iowa Hospitals did such a wonderful job on me when i was a baby all my stuff is in the places or there about! When I was a baby they put a mesh in me that the dr built up my stomach walls and I remember that when I was little I was preached about not getting hit in the belly area or I would Die! I had no stomache muscles to protect my inners.
Well I hope I helped a little I am now 35 years old and doing well! I am married to a wonderful man who dosen’t mind the scar at all and loves me for who I am ! 
Danyel
P.S. If anyone has this birth defect please email me maybe we can chat! I would love to meet sum people that I can relate to with this Birth Defect!
coolhippychic@aol.com
Let me know it’s about this subject or it may end up in trash! TY